Evacuation sleds are used by first responders, emergency services, care facilities, etc, to rapidly and safely evacuate patients from beds, accidents, danger zones, and the like. Typically, the sled is brought to the non-ambulatory person; the person is transferred to the sled, and then evacuated by pulling or dragging. One apparent disadvantage of conventional sleds is being configured for multiple persons to move the non-ambulatory person, whereby an efficient evacuation sled is desired to be deployed and used by a single first responder.
Conventional evacuation sleds and devices may be characterized as a “soft” sled or a “hard” sled. Known soft sleds are devices formed from plastic, cloth or other flexible materials for evacuating and transporting a non-ambulatory person. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,442,557 issued Apr. 17, 1984 to Clemens discloses a soft carrier apparatus for use by fire fighters to carry fire hose, and then to serve as a personnel carrier, configured with bottom and side walls, and at one end there is an end wall having handles and portions of the side walls the end wall perpendicular to the bottom and end wall. While useful, such conventional soft sleds have disadvantages in that a non-ambulatory person can be further injured because the soft sheet of material does not protect from jagged surfaces, falls, impacts, or other external forces that may affect the person during transportation. A further not obvious problem with soft sleds is the difficulty in a single person reliably and securely transporting the non-ambulatory person, as they may roll out or have their weight shift complicating transporting them.
Similarly, conventional hard sleds are devices formed from a rigid board from wood, plastic or other materials with hand-holds or cut-outs for the responder to use when transporting and evacuating non-ambulatory person. Conventional hard sleds also have belts or ropes to be put around the person to secure the person to the sled while transporting. For example, U.S. Pat. No. issued Feb. 5, 2013 to Kenalty et al. discloses a hard sled for use in evacuating or moving non-ambulatory persons comprising a sled formed of a semi rigid plastic sheet preferably made of a sheet of high density polyethylene (HDPE), although any suitable material may be used, such as Kevlar, composites, resins, other high density plastics, etc. While useful, conventional hard sleds have disadvantages in that these may be relatively expensive to buy, bulky and therefore difficult to store or transport, difficult for one person to maneuver and use reliably when the non-ambulatory person is placed thereon, and are not foldable.
What is desired, then, is a low cost efficient and effective apparatus, system and kit for moving a non-ambulatory person with improvements over the problems and disadvantages of conventional soft and hard sled designs. A problem to be addressed by the design of the present invention is to provide an apparatus, system and kit for a single person to securely and reliably transport a non-ambulatory person while protecting them from further injury during transport.
For example, a disadvantage that is not obvious is that dragging the non-ambulatory person across a rough surface using conventional soft sleds, such as concrete, may further injure the non-ambulatory person placed thereon. The design apparatus, system and kit of the present invention addresses this problem to protect the non-ambulatory person being moved by having one or more protective rigid plates or plates disposed therein. The one or more protective plates in the design of the apparatus, system and kit of the present invention is an improvement over conventional soft sleds that protects non-ambulatory persons from further injury by while being moved.
Another problem to be addressed by the apparatus, system and kit of the present invention is for a single person to deploy and to transport securely a non-ambulatory person. A disadvantage that is not obvious is that conventional sleds have designs where a single person has problems transporting a non-ambulatory person when using them.
A disadvantage that is not obvious is that conventional sleds have designs that delay the process of deployment and transportation of a non-ambulatory person. Soft sleds are rolled and ineffective so as to cause deployment delays; hard sleds are heavy and not easily transported causing deployment delays. The present invention has a system that may be formed in a portable kit design with advantages to transport one or more sleds easily to the site of the non-ambulatory person(s) so as to deploy and transport one or more non-ambulatory persons. The kit may be configured in a satchel, backpack or other carrying case and one or more devices disposed within the pack is carried by a person, for example, in a pack or backpack of a first responder. In operation, the design of the present invention also is folded in a z-fold to quickly deploy by a single person or first responder, e.g. by removing from the case, positioning adjacent the non-ambulatory person, tossing forward while holding the handles so as to deploy, then moving the non-ambulatory person onto it (and securing thereto), and transporting the non-ambulatory person from one location to another.
As a result of these and other problems and disadvantages, there exists a long-felt need for a solution of the apparatus, system and kit in a portable, flexible sled with one or more protective plates designed to be easily transported to the non-ambulatory person, deployed, and utilized by a single first responder. The apparatus, system and kit of the present invention is designed to protect the non-ambulatory person being moved by having one or more protective plates disposed therein. There also exists a need for a portable kit design configured with one or more devices disposed within a backpack used by a person (e.g. first responder, emergency medical technician, police, fire, rescue, etc.) that advantageously may be transported to the site of the non-ambulatory person and deployed so as to transport one or more non-ambulatory persons.
The present invention satisfies these and other long-felt needs to deploy and move one or more non-ambulatory person from one location to another. The sled design of the present invention has straps used in transporting by two (2) or more persons, or by one (1) person using such straps as a harness for dragging the non-ambulatory person and protecting them from further injury by the one or more protective plates disposed therein while being moved.